


Shellshocked

by Nitrobot



Series: Bug Bites [2]
Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers: Robots in Disguise (2015)
Genre: F/M, Gender or Sex Swap, Grief/Mourning, Inappropriate Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-15
Updated: 2017-05-30
Packaged: 2018-07-22 10:38:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 11,689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7433287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nitrobot/pseuds/Nitrobot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Strongarm and Sideswipe run into one of the Alchemor's more peculiar escapees, the snailformer Escargon. What makes him so interesting is his weapon, and his penchant on using it to turn mechs into femmes. And vice versa.<br/><s>Whatever floats your shell, buddy...</s></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, Escargon is a real canon character ([here's](http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Escargon) his wiki page if you don't believe me) and he has so much potential for genderbend fics that I'm quite frankly offended no one's ever done anything with him. Until now.
> 
> (This can be considered a sequel to Don't Get Stung since the OC in that, Circuitsplitter, is mentioned, but honestly you don't need to have read DGS)
> 
> (Also big thanks to FlyingCondors for helping me put this together *3^)

“I still don't get why you've got it out for him, Strongarm,” Sideswipe said, swerving slightly on the road as he tried to talk and drive at the same time, as well as keeping steady with Strongarm’s achingly slow speed. “The guy’s been here a decacyle now and he's only tried to steal something once! And he apologised after you threatened to knock his optics out! Drift only landed yesterday and you've been nicer to him in all that time than you have been to Circuit.”

Strongarm scoffed through both radio and wheels as she turned a hard corner just ahead of him. "You're only defending him cause he told you how to make homebrew high grade. And it isn't even high grade, your tanks almost exploded when you tried drinking it!"

"Just because I didn't add enough heat! Sheesh, what'd he ever do to you?" 

“HE PURGED ON MY PEDS!” Strongarm practically slammed into his side, nudging him to a patch of dirt along the road before transforming onto her legs. Sideswipe almost careened into a bush of thorns before he remembered to activate his own T Cog, peds skidding in dust as he tried to shake it all off his frame.

"You're _still_ on about that?” he asked, shaking grit out of his audios with a palm hitting against his helm. “I had it _way_ worse, I actually went into his quarters! Do have any idea how many fluids I had to wade through just to get across it? Because I sure don't!" He was still traumatised, but Strongarm only rolled her optics as he trudged beside her. 

“Oh _please_ , Sides, as if your room back on Cybertron isn't just as bad!”

"Well you should've seen how it was! I don't know what sort of mech keeps their Playmech in that condition." He shuddered all through his shoulders, giving Strongarm the chance to mutter.

“Obviously the kind of mech you get along well with…”

"Well, I- _Oomph_!" Sideswipe’s defense was swiftly shoved out of his vents as the ground crashed into him, his leg throbbing from whatever he’d managed to trip over. Strongarm only offered a hand to help him up after she'd gotten a mandatory laugh at his sprawled expense out of her systems, and he had to nurse his ego as well as his aching ped while he glared at the culprit.

“...Was that boulder here the last time we checked?” he asked, knowing for a fact that it wasn't but also trusting Strongarm more than himself. She followed his optics and made her own narrow as she examined it.

“It doesn't look like a boulder to me…” It was actually much bigger than one, covered with spiralling ridges with a pearlescent glint that no stone would have been capable of. Strongarm traced a digit along the smooth grooves. “It looks more like some kind of... shell?"

"A friend of Bisk's, maybe?" Sideswipe suggested, though he was almost shuddering again at the thought of another creepy-as-all-Pit Decepticon to give him nightmares. Strongarm at least didn't agree, still humming to herself as she examined the shell.

“There's an insignia here, but I don't recognise it,” she muttered, pointing to the center of a spiral on one side of it, an emblem mirrored on the other side. It wasn't Decepticon, but it also wasn't Autobot. And if even Strongarm didn't know what it was, that gave Sideswipe reason to worry, and to do something reckless without thinking about it. With his other ped still dimly ringing, he used the other to bang against the shell. 

"Hey, wakey wakey!"

"Sideswipe, don't-!" Strongarm had to roll out of the way as the shell toppled sideways under Sideswipe’s kicks, almost falling on her. But before she could recover and start the usual routine of scolding him, something popped out of the shell. Something bright and blinking, suspending on a long stalk that wound out from inside it to glare at the two bots.

"Alright, alright, I'm up!” The mech voice echoed slightly in the shell, and another floating optic slipped out from the hard metal as it split in half with the familiar whirr of a T Cog. “A guy can't get a nap anywhere around-” The strange mech, now on two peds with his shell split up into segments over his shoulders and servos, faltered at the sight of Strongarm’s blaster aimed at him. 

“Stay right where you are,” she ordered, as Sideswipe hurried to stand behind her. “Who are you?”

The snail mech’s stalks shrank down, almost pressing his optics flat against his face with its squirming feelers on either side of his mouth, and he spread his palms wide and empty in front of him. He was only slightly less creepy than Bisk. “Escargon… I was in a ship crash, and I-”

“So you're an escaped prisoner,” Strongarm cut in, tightening her grip on her weapon. 

“Well, technically, but I-” Escargon was trying to drift forwards, but he froze as Strongarm's barrel jabbed the air.

“Not another step!” And then one of her servos shot out, stopping Sideswipe from copying him. “That goes for you too Sideswipe, you idiot!” She lowered her voice to a hiss, shooting a narrow glare at him. “We could have just arrested him while he was asleep!”

“And miss out on a fight?” Sides asked, flashing a smirk tailored just to annoy her. “Where's the fun in that?”

“There's not gonna _be_ a fight…” Strongarm almost didn't recognise Escargon’s voice from how it morphed to a grating growl, and by the time she did realise it he’d already pulled a weapon seemingly out of nowhere; a long prod with hooks on either end and one of them aimed right at Sideswipe. She didn't even think before she lunged in front of him, just a nanoklick before a whistling flash filled her optics, and then a harsh sting bloomed in her neck. 

“Strongarm!” She could hear Sideswipe wail, feel his servos catch her just before she met the ground like he did, but everything else was numb. “Talk to me, Strongarm, are you okay?!”

He had a hand on her cheek, ghostly digits tingling on her faceplate as she tried to realise what was happening. She wasn't leaking, no poisons had been detected by her scanners yet, but she still felt an uncomfortable pressure building in her spark, more than what usually accumulated there when she was this close to Sides. “I'm… I'm fine, I… think?”

Strongarm's vision finally cleared and the first thing she saw was Sideswipe’s skepticism hovering over her, as well as a clear sheen of utter confusion only getting worse as he blinked. “Uh… what happened to your voice?” he asked, his own one cracking slightly. Strongarm could only hear her vocaliser in a rough, hoarse thrum from her thrumming throat, but before she could ask what the Pit he meant Escargon popped up again, taking aim at Sideswipe once again while he was bent over and utterly absorbed in her.

“Sideswipe, look out behind-!” And then Strongarm heard just what had happened to her voice, how deep and heavy and utterly not-her it had become, though even if she'd managed to finish the warning it would have been too late to save Sideswipe from the dart hitting his aft.

“OWW!” Sideswipe lost his balance once again, falling right on top of Strongarm and driving all her weak breath out of her vents. Over his shoulder all Strongarm could see was Escargon bearing rows of tiny but razor-glittering denta in a grin, twirling his lance proudly.

“Bullseye,” he said, though his smugness only lasted until Strongarm found her fallen blaster and started careening shots all over where he stood, sending him scurrying backwards with his eyestalks dangling wildly. Even when she took her digit off the trigger he still kept fleeing, using his lance as a vault to send himself flying further over the ground.

“Freaky jerk…” She shoved Sideswipe off her while he was still whining and rubbing his aft, though she felt a similar ache in her neck where her hand found a dart lodged into the cables. She turned it over, peering at the sharp barb between fletchings that formed a heart shape together, but dropped it at a very sudden, very disturbing realisation out of the corner of her optic.

“What the… what the FRAG?!” The sound of her new voice only made everything worse, her hands shaking as they roamed over her flat chest. “W-where, what… WHERE ARE MY CHESTPLATES?!” She didn't even want to look at what had become of her interface panel, now a codpiece with something… very uncomfortable filling it. 

At least she wasn't the only one suffering. “Umm… I-I think… they've been moved…” Sideswipe voice, from a mouth with bright red lips around it, sounded like he’d spent a breem feeding his tanks with helium, and as he knelt he was clutching his own chest and its… new ample mounds with optics almost looking like they'd pop out on their own stalks. “Oh Primus, this is wrong, this is wrong, this is _so so so_ wrong!” He pushed himself onto trembling legs, still poking his new assets as he turned to where Escargon had fled, using one servo to very ineffectively threaten his retreating silhouette. “HEY WHAT THE HECK, MAN!? Get back here and fix us before I shove that thing up your tailpipe! Or whatever you creepy bugs shoot exhaust outta!”

Part of Strongarm was struggling to hold back laughter at Sideswipe’s rage, but another part was very conscious of her new codpiece banging between her legs as she tried to stsnd up. And in spite of the chaos raging between the two bot’s warped bodies, she realised something else entirely that turned the unfortunate incident into a potential catastrophe.

“Sides… how close are we to the scrapyard?” 

And Sideswipe only lowered his damning servo when the same thought hit him, that Escargon was heading right towards a team of unsuspecting Autobots. “Oh. Scrap.” And then he looked down, past the chestplates threatening to unbalance him, and realised he was standing in a patch of slime the snail seemed to leave behind him with each step. “ _EWWWWWWW_!”


	2. Chapter 2

The slime trail, as disgusting as it was, did help them catch up with the not-Decepticon; though with Sideswipe almost falling flat on his faceplate thanks to his new chestplates severely unbalancing him, by the time they reached the scrapyard it was too late to spare anyone else from their fate.

Rolling down a dip with his shell, Escargon transformed and stood in the center of the Autobots while they all tried to figure out where he’d just come from, and whatever he was thinking didn't matter when his optics shot up and locked onto Strongarm while she skidded to a stop.

“Bumblebee, sir, look out-!”

But her warning was useless, with Bee only giving her a look of confusion at the new slope of her voice (as well as Sideswipe panting beside her with his new frame), only registering something was wrong with her just as Escargon carried out his next attack. His spear shot out not one dart, but six of them in several directions… three of them hitting Bee, then Grimlock, and then Drift- with the Minicons thankfully too short to be in the line of fire. But even if they weren't immobilised like the others, they couldn't do much to help as Escargon grumbled and smacked his lancer.

“Primus damn... because of you idiots, I only have one dart left!” He looked at Strongarm again, now finding a blaster aimed at him, but before a standoff could take place the Autobot's newest member appeared to Strongarm’s annoyance and distraction, too busy yawning and scratching his aft to notice the chaos strewn all around him. 

“Yo, someone wanna tell me why it's fragging impossible to take a nap around here- GAH, SON OF A GLITCH!” Circuitsplitter ended up on the ground with everyone else, clutching his neck and the pink dart jutting out of it as Escargon rolled away, the hard enamel of his shell deflecting every blast Strongarm hurled after him. She would have kept chasing him regardless, if not for Russell running out and coming so close to being squished by him- if she hadn't been there to snatch him out of the way.

“Woah! Thanks, Strong-” Russell went silent, noting that the chest he was being held again was much flatter than it should have been. “Uh… Strongarm?”

“Don’t ask.” Her voice only heightened the human’s bewilderment, but for the sake of her sanity he just nodded as she set him down. He scampered off to where the Autobots were slowly finding parts of their bodies either completely gone or suddenly enlarged, while she looked to where Escargon had vanished, not even a trace of slime marking his path. Her spark was still a smolder as she followed Russell back to where Bee was snapping hands all over his… well, if Sideswipe was blessed by Primus, Bee was just outed as one of his heralds from how endowed he was.

At least wasn't the only femme on the team anymore.

“Alright, everyone just stay… stay calm…” Strongarm had to hand it to Bee, somehow managing to keep it together even if his face made it look like someone had just planted a Scraplet in his codpiece (or… panel, in this case).  
His voice had changed like Sideswipe’s, definitely feminine yet still sounding like himself, though even with the command still with him the order wasn’t followed very well. Sideswipe was still whimpering and trying to stay upright while Grimlock was frantically rubbing his chest as if he could push the mounds jutting out of it back into his plating. Eventually he just snapped into his thankfully unchanged alt mode, nervously telling himself in his own altered voice, “Everything’s normal as long as I stay like this!”

Drift was more or less frozen in place even though his chest didn't seem changed at all, with his Minicons flitting all around him.Surprisingly (or maybe not, considering him) the only one taking it well was Circuitsplitter, poking his hanging plates with more curiosity than shock. “...I'm getting horrible horrible flashbacks to that time I accidentally took MammAdd.”

Sideswipe took a break from his nervous breakdown to ask, “Isn't that a drug to fake pregnancy in femmes?”

“Which is exactly why it makes your chestplates pretty much explode. And why I said _accidentally_ ,” Circuit pointed out, jabbing Sideswipe right in his cleavage and making him squeak and jump back. Strongarm would have been laughing if she wasn't stuck in a pit of her own confusion, still desperately trying to ignore her new codpiece (yet also wondering how the frag mechs managed to walk with it banging between their legs all the time) as she approached Bumblebee in his own bubble of disbelief.

“Autobot training never had guidelines for something like this…” Strongarm would have been slightly concerned if they _did_ , but she decided to not tell Bee that.

"Bumblebee, sir, uh... I mean, ma'am-"

“Sir will do, Strongarm,” he sighed, pressing his palm hard against his forehelm. “Please tell me you know what the frag just happened.”

That was something Strongarm could do at least, with her processor the only thing making any sense to her. “Well… while on patrol, we came across the criminal, and Sideswipe woke him up-”

“Hey, don't blame this on me!” Sides called out, about to step towards her but then almost losing his balance (only saved by Grimlock’s tail slapping against his front as the Dinobot stampeded past) and allowed her to continue as if he wasn't there. 

“He told us his name was Escargon, before he… well, before he attacked us. He didn't have a Decepticon insignia so his motives are unclear, but as you can see, his weapon somehow… manages to change bodies.” 

‘Somehow’ seemed to be the buzzword of the day, with no explanation for anything even as simple as their new enemy’s faction. Bee grunted, turning to where Fixit had been idling amidst the mayhem. “Fixit, for the love of Primus, tell me you have a profile on this freak.”

“Uh, s-sure, just… give me a klick to find the breast-zzt-REST! I MEANT REST! I… I’ll go now.” The Minicon fled as fast as his wheels would carry him away from Bee’s exhausted glare, zipping past Jetstorm and Slipstream trying to rouse their master from his imposed  
stasis. Sideswipe, finally adjusted to his new center of balance, also offered his own assistance with a hand waving up and down in front of the samurai’s blank face.

“Uh… Drift? Buddy? You oka-?” Whatever had happened to Drift hadn’t sapped away any of his strength, from how easily he hauled Sideswipe forwards to growl into his horrified face.

“Change. Me. Back. _Now_.” There was too much threat in his voice for any change to be noticed, which was probably the whole point.

“We’re, uh… we’re working on it…!” Even as Sides tried to pry the digits on his neck away, it was only the Minicons tugging on Drift’s armour that convinced the samurai to let him go. 

“We think you still look handsome, master!” Slipstream cried. 

That was only one of the mini fiascos taking place, honorable mentions going to Grimlock trying to ignore his distress by crushing things, Circuitsplitter paying far more attention to his chestplates than should ever have been necessary and Russell trying to not combust from laughter. Strongarm rolled her optics, knowing Bee would be the only one able to deal with today’s Big Problem. 

“What should we do now… sir?”

Bumblebee let out grating vents, very deliberately avoiding looking down. “Just… try and carry on as normal, until we know what we’re dealing with. As long as no-one sees us like this, everything should be oka-” He finally made the mistake of trying to step forwards, finding himself majorly top heavy and face-planting into the dirt. 

“Strongarm, how the Pit do you walk with these things?!” 

“Well, sir, mines aren't as… robust as yours.” A current of very inappropriate giggles helped smother hints of jealousy on Strongarm’s part, and she helped Bee balance himself again as he cursed his frame to the Pit. Though he wished he'd just stayed down when Denny showed up, hiding his amusement much more poorly than Russell and snorting when he caught sight of the yellow mech-turned-femme. 

“Hey, Bumblebee… or should I say, Bumble-double D.”

“What?”

“Sorry, sorry, just a… human joke.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BUMBLEBEE'S DOUBLE DEES MAKE THE MECHS GO WHEE WHOO


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This took way too long to get out; I honestly got a little bored writing it and then was distracted by uni and other stories I wanted to get out of the way. I have a better idea now of where to take this, so it shouldn't be long until it's done and dusted.

“Now I understand this is a very… confusing situation for everyone,” Bumblebee began, with the Autobots gathered before him and still poking at their new bodies, everyone except Drift who had still hardly budged from his frozen vigil of daring anyone to stare at him. “But I assure you all, it's only temporary,” Bee went on. “We’ll all be back to normal as soon as we find- Circuit, will you stop doing that!?”

Circuitsplitter glanced up from his chest, still squeezing the plates in his hands. “Why should I?” he asked through a scowl. “They're _my_ tits, I'll do what I want with them!” He went back to palming them even more forcefully than before, drawing many optic rolls from Strongarm as she crossed her servos over her own depressingly flat chestplate.

“Unbelievable…” Bumblebee shook his aching helm and gestured to Fixit by his side. “Fixit, would you please tell us what you found while I still have the will to live?”

The Minicon cleared his vocaliser, very wisely keeping his optics focused on a datapad and not the new feminine frames surrounding him. “Well… according to the Alchemor’s database, Escargon is a Maximal-”

“A what-imal?” Sideswipe butted in.

“Maximals are teams of beast-mode bots trained in combat against hostile Predacons,” Bee explained. “They haven't been needed since the Pred-Auto Treaties, so nowadays they tend to work as off-world mercenaries.”

“So this Escargon freak got caught on the wrong side of a fight?” Grimlock asked Fixit, prompting the Minicon to flick further through his datapad for the answer.

“Actually, his record shows he was arrested for possession of pink energon-” That was all Fixit managed to reveal before Strongarm cut in.

“That's a narcotic often used in the production of illegal aphrodisiacs and spark affection-manipulation drugs,” she recited on impulse from a long-ago lecture on street substances. 

“Yes, Strongarm, that's exactly what it is…” Bumblebee didn't seem to appreciate the constant interruptions from how heavily he sighed. “We can assume he uses the energon as a base for whatever induces these… unique effects.”

“If it’s really a drug, can't we just wait for it to wear off?” Sideswipe asked, hope suddenly brimming in his optics. Even Circuitsplitter got bored enough of his new chestplates to pay attention just then.

“We can't take that chance, just in case the effect ends up being permanent,” Bee answered, with both Sideswipe and Strongarm whimpering at the possibility. “The sooner we find Escargon’s slimy aft and get him to change us back, the better.”

“Well just how are we supposed to track him down?” Sideswipe pointed out, like it wasn't any of his business to help try and find him.

“Walk around for a while, Sides, you might trip over him again,” Strongarm suggested in a mutter, diverting her optics from Sideswipe’s scandalised scowl. 

“Lemme after him, Bee!” Grimlock pushed himself to the front of the gathering, stubbornly stuck in his beast mode. “Femme or mech I can still crush him in a nanoklick!”

“Actually, Fixit happens to know of a way to lure him out…” Bumblebee held back from physically pulling them apart, pushing Fixit further out in front of him to defuse the two bots. The Minicon blinked up at the bots closing in on him before remembering to keep his optics firmly away from them both.

“W-Well, uh… portly-zzt-shortly after his initial arrest, uh… it came to light that, for some reason, Escargon was… very interested in mechs he’d turned into femmes…” Fixit was wise to shrink behind his datapad as a repulsive realisation rippled through the bots surrounding him.

“Why am I getting horrible Stinger flashbacks already?” Sideswipe groaned.

“Because we need to use the same strategy for her on Escargon,” Bumblebee said, not exactly enthusiastic about the prospect either. “One of us needs to lure him out into an ambush. If he thinks there's no danger, he’ll leave himself vulnerable to capture. And no messing with electricity this time, Circuit.”

The party-mech/femme visibly deflated now he knew he was practically useless now. “Awww…”

“So who's gonna be the bait this time?” Strongarm asked, unsympathetic to Circuit’s plight.

“Sure as Pit won't be me again, I’ll say that much,” Bee scoffed. “And I don't think we can trust Drift to not kill the guy before we get him.”

Drift grunted in agreement, refusing to budge his servos from being bolted over his chest, while Circuitsplitter recovered from his disappointment to jab a digit at Sides’ cleavage. “Yo Sides, weren't _you_ the one to let him get away?”

Sideswipe seemed more offended at the implication than being borderline-groped. “I, uh… m-maybe, but that was a one time thing! Not even my fault! He’s the one who got in my way!”

Maybe it was his genuine panic, his plaintive pleading or the fact that it was hard not to take pity on a helpless femme; whatever the reason, Strongarm found herself pulled towards Sideswipe to fend off Circuit’s assault. “Well, since you're not so bothered about your new body, how about we use _you_ as bait?” she said, almost toppling the mech onto his aft from how hard she shoved back. Even though Circuit had felt her strength before, he was still surprised at how easily she displaced him, and kept his distance from her this time. 

“Hey! Just cause you don't want your boyfriend getting in danger-!” 

“HE IS _NOT_ MY BOYFRIEND!”

“Well, yeah, right now he's technically a girlfriend, but-”

“Enough!” Bee finally stepped in to edge the two apart, thankfully hiding Strongarm's blush just as it was burning through her faceplate. “Look, this is the only plan we have, and until I hear anything better it's the one we’re going with. It’s only fair that Sideswipe be the one to lure out Escargon, while the rest of us position ourselves to catch him. Any questions?”

It was as fair a mission as any of them were going to get, even Sideswipe somberly knew that. Though that didn't stop him sticking his servo up to ask, “How come your chestplates are bigger than mine?!”

If she hadn't’ just stuck herself out for him, Strongarm would have genuinely punched his vocaliser out. Poor Bee seemed to wish she would as he buried his head in his hand. “Sides, that _really_ isn't part of the issue here.”

“Yeah, don't make a mountain out of a B-cup, Sides,” Denny giggled from afar as he eavesdropped in on the meeting, just one of many jokes he’d made that only he understood. The chilly silence from the Autobots didn't stop his laughter, it was only when he noticed Russell staring up at him that he shut himself up. “Is… what an irresponsible parent would say!” the human hastily added which a much more nervous chuckle. “Please don't tell your mother about that…”

The smaller human shook his head in a gesture far too familiar to Strongarm by now, and walked up to Fixit with a large bag dragging behind him. “Hey, did you say the guy you're after is a snail thing?”

Fixit glanced down at his datapad again to confirm. “A mollusc beastformer, yes.”

“Then I've got the solution right here!” Russell hefted the bag around so it was placed in the center of the Autobots. Bee knelt to look inside, creasing his eyeridges as his digit sifted through the white powder within.

“How is this gonna help us?”

“It's salt!” Russell explained. “We use it for melting snow in the winter.”  
Denny abandoned his scrap-sorting to slap a hand on his son’s back. “Hey, good idea, Russ! Earth snails hate this stuff, dries them out so they can't move. Maybe it’ll work on your robot snail as well.”

Bumblebee still looked skeptical, rubbing the tiny salt grains between his digits with a shrug. “Well, I guess we can try it… no killing him, though. He can't switch us back if he's dead.”

Drift huffed again as Bumblebee pushed himself upright. “Once we are returned to our normal frames, I make no promises,” the samurai muttered, and his students mirrored his grim scowl by his sides. 

“Right, if that's everything…” Bee let Grimlock carry the salt as he turned to the rest of the team. “Strongarm, Circuitsplitter; you and I will follow Escargon’s trail and set up the ambush. Sides, I believe you have a date to get ready for.”

Strongarm hadn't thought it possible, but the mech looked even more depressed at being reminded of it. She patted his sunken shoulders with only a hint of genuine pity. “You can borrow my armour polish if you want.”

Sides pouted at the mockery, an even more amusing sight not that he had thicker lips to push out. But despite that, his optics flicked upwards in sincere worry. “...It doesn't take as long for femmes to get ready as everyone says, does it?”

Strongarm could have just slapped him for believing slag like that, but she resisted the urge to instead tut at him and give him a disapproving look over. “I dunno, Sides… you make a pretty ugly femme. You need all the prep time you can get.” She sauntered away before he could decide if she was being serious or not, finally getting the hang of walking with a whole new frame to balance. 

“Oh yeah?! Well… have fun dealing with the fiberglass stubble! And don’t expect me to show you how to get rid of it!” Sides called out at her back, only making her laugh when she knew full well Sides had a faceplate as smooth as a sparkling’s protoform. And onwards she would have kept walking with her oddly-light spark and giddy step, if she didn't see Circuitsplitter staring at her (and not in his usual half-sober way).

“What are _you_ looking at?”

The mech shrugged as if he was innocent. “You two are cute together. But don't let the shell-sucker see it, you know he’ll get jealous.” He winked at her before she could splutter out another denial, leaving her feeling exactly like Sideswipe with nothing to retort with and no one to yell at.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> edit 5/06/17: the middle of this chapter has been slightly altered because when I was rereading this I realised I totally forgot to include something from the last one.

Sideswipe didn’t often feel the need to pity Bumblebee, but knowing he was in this exact same situation just a week ago almost gave him respect for the commander.  
If only he didn't gloat so much about not being bait this time.

 _"Would it kill you to look a little more enthusiastic, Sides?_ ” Bee asked from wherever he'd camped himself with Strongarm, safely out of reach of their lecherous gender-bending criminal while Sides was left to wander aimlessly through the forest. His only solace was that his peds were still flat, so only his severely shifted balance made him stumble through the undergrowth.

“If I had any _enthusiasm_ to spare, I'd be sending it up your tailpipe with my ped!” Sideswipe bellowed into his comm link, almost reaching supersonic pitch with the new range his vocaliser had. 

“ _Will you keep it down!?_ ” Strongarm yelled right back at him, a stark contrast with her chasm-deep tones. “ _We don't know how close he might be to you!_ ”

Sideswipe barely hid a shudder at the thought of Escargon being anywhere nearby as he hissed, “Well he's not exactly hard to miss!”

“ _Coming from the one who couldn’t see him right in front of his damn optics!_ ” Strongarm retorted.

“ _Both of you snap out of it!_ ” Bee ordered, the only one who could actually shut Strongarm up. “ _Look, Sides, you’re not in any danger. As soon as we get sight of Escargon and see a chance to snatch him, we’ll take it. Just sit tight until he shows up._ ”

Sideswipe pressed his glossa against gritted denta, so close to a scoff before he noticed a bush ahead that shouldn’t have been moving. His glossa fell to the floor of his mouth like heavy stone, only leaving him able to whisper.

“Wait a klick… I think I see something." He edged through the low leaves as he followed the disturbance, shivering from the cold caress of the undergrowth along new parts of his body that he'd never get used to.

“ _Be careful, Sides. We don't know what else he might try and pull-_ ” 

This time he managed a full scoff at Bumblebee’s order. “As far as I'm concerned, this is as worse as it can get,” he muttered, testing the ground ahead with his peds before bringing the rest of his frame forward. When a light wind blew against his ankle, he knew he'd hit a break in the trees before he saw the trembling silhouette slumped in the middle of the clearing.

“Um… Escargon?” He had to say it twice before his vocaliser let itself go higher than a mumble. The figure stopped shaking, stalks shooting up from his helm that frantically swayed left and right before turning around and finally spotting Sideswipe. As he scrambled to his peds, Escargon’s shell reflected a full moon overhead that printed itself on the hard metal spirals like light hitting the surface of a violent lake. Though it was too dark to see much of his face, the tentacles on either side of his jaw squirmed in the air as they stretched towards Sideswipe.

“...Mollusa?” he asked, barely louder than the low wind trying to throw his optics sideways. His hands were empty, completely unarmed as he hovered them close to Sideswipe, both eager and hesitant to be near him. 

Sideswipe, having no idea what he was talking about, was just hesitant. “Uh, sure… if you say s-” His confusion was shoved out in a tight wheeze as the cautious servos suddenly embraced him, eyestalks looping themselves around his neck like a slimy scarf as Escargon laughed and sobbed against his chest (thankfully right above where Sideswipe’s armoured cleavage began). 

“I missed you… so much!” He squeezed tighter the more Sideswipe struggled to break free and shuddered at the thought of slime covering his armour, but he at least released his neck as his closed optics wound themselves back to lie flat on his face. Just when Sideswipe thought he'd have to kick himself free, Escargon finally relented and stepped back with only his hands clamped on his shoulders, and thankfully no slime to be felt. 

“Primus, I've been looking everywhere… so long for you, Mollusa... Shelly’s gonna be so happy to see you again.” He let go of Sideswipe’s shoulders to wring his digits together, a tight fist over his pounding spark that Sides felt as if their chambers were right next to each other, yet with all that closeness he still couldn't decipher what was going on in the other mech’s mind. 

“Shelly…?” Hearing it from someone else must have switched something off in Escargon’s systems, from how his excitement dissolved like acid rain pouring down his face as his optics fell limp like corpses dangling from a noose, feelers crossing over each other nervously.

“I didn't tell her you were… she just thought you left for a mission.” His guilt was so palpable that, even without context, Sideswipe knew it was a confession. “I hated lying to her, but… I had to.” His optics picked back up, with all the brightness of the moon slipping into them. “Cause I knew you'd be back one day. And I was right!” He launched forwards into another hug, oozing relief instead of slime while Sideswipe stood silent, only now trying to piece together everything. There was only one kind of bot that anyone would give so much adoration to; at least, only one for Sideswipe. And she wasn't with him right now to compare with. 

Mollusa… Shelly...

He was never the most quick-witted mech, or femme, but it finally hit him like a bullet through his processor. Or maybe that was just the hiss of Bumblebee's voice through his comm unit. 

“ _Sideswipe, what's going on? Is he hostile_?”

Still shaken by realisation, Sideswipe blinked sore optics as he tried to answer Bee without blowing his unwanted cover. “Uh, you're… very affectionate, Escargon,” he said, crackling nerves only making his pitched voice crack even higher.

“Why wouldn't I be?” Escargon sagged into Sideswipe in his delusional joy. “I'm… I'm just so happy to have you back!” Hovering optics focused on Sideswipe's face for a klick, squinting slightly and enough to make him worry. “And you changed your helm style… I like it!” Escargon was so invested in keeping up his denial, in keeping Sideswipe close, that he couldn't have possibly noticed the two Autobots closing in on him, dark leaves and a darker night shielding them from even his telescopic optics.

It was too late for Sideswipe to warn him, or to tell him the truth. Still, he couldn't let a false embrace be the last thing he knew before a cold stasis. He slipped his hand into his subspace.

“...Escargon?”

“Yes, darling?”

“I'm… really sorry about this.”

“Wha-?” Escargon tensed, barely a nanoklick before Sideswipe jumped back and hurled a handful of white powder at him. He wasn’t quite sure what to expect, or when he’d be hearing Escargon’s agony… but the Maximal only blinked blankly as he looked at the crystals embedded in his slime.

“What the… what’s this?” He sniffed at his protoform, scratching at the thin residue coating it. Sideswipe might as well have thrown glitter at him.

“That… doesn’t hurt you?” he asked, looking at the rest of the salt packed into his hand and silently cursing it.

Escargon shook his helm, his stalks dangling left and right. “It tingles a little, but no. Is it… supposed to?” He cocked his helm, optics narrowed with confusion. Even when faced with attempted murder, he still wasn’t suspicious at all. He really was delusional. 

Sideswipe might have just forsaken the plan and come clean then and there… if his backup wasn’t already creeping up on the Maximal. Escargon was still eyeing him when the butt of Strongarm's blaster crashed down on his helm right between his stalks. And just like the hope in those fallen optics, he crumpled instantly. 

“Well, that was easy. Even if the salt trick didn’t work,” Strongarm said, checking her blaster for any slime stains as Bumblebee knelt to make sure Escargon stayed down.

“I’ll say. He didn't even put up a fight,” Bee said somewhat critically as he slapped the snail’s servos into stasis cuffs. 

Sides didn't move at all. He stared down at Escargon, sprawled in the dirt with his shell barely shining in the undergrowth’s gloom, with nothing but regret. “He wasn't a threat,” he said quietly, with no wind left to fight against. “He… thought I was someone else. Not just a random femme, he… he recognised me.”

Still on his knees, Bee looked up and shrugged at the assertion. “It’s pretty dark. Maybe he couldn't tell who you were. Or maybe he's just delusional.”

Strongarm huffed as she crossed her sercos over her flat chest, dangling her blaster with two digits on the trigger guard. “Would explain why he went around messing with everyone’s interfaces.”

Sides looked to her now, wondering just how hard she'd hit him. “Did you have to take him out like that?”

Strongarm lost her stern expression when she heard Sideswipe's unmistakable remorse. “You said he was ‘affectionate’. We thought it was another Stinger situation. Better safe than sorry,” she argued.

As always, she was right. Sideswipe knew it, but he couldn't make himself accept it when he still saw Escargon lying like a drone’s carcass, that once hammering spark barely ticking over now. 

“What matters now is that he's incapacitated,” Bee said, retrieving a familiar lance from the other edge of the clearing as he twirled it in his servos. “And it looks like he had time to make himself a few more darts. If one hit switched us over, another should switch us back.” Bee stopped his showing off for just long enough to give Strongarm a chance to snatch it out of his hand.

“Mind if I have first shot?” she asked, aiming the tip right between Sideswipe's chestplates.

“Hey, wait, can I just-! OWWWW!” Sideswipe shrieked as he clutched just over his spark, only grateful that it wasn't his aft this time as he yanked the dart out of his already-shrinking chest. 

“Sorry, what was that? I couldn't quite- MOTHERFRAGGER!” Strongarm wasn't allowed much time to feel smug before Bumblebee grabbed the lance back and stabbed it right into her shoulder, with a high-pitched curse that was what her vocaliser was supposed to sound like. She was still hissing at the dart when Sideswipe picked himself back up and found joy in his flattened chest and restored codpiece (though it wasn't quite the time to check). He let Strongarm lean against him as her body settled back to normal, and to grab the lancer that Bee made the fatal mistake of leaving on the ground.

“If you're both done arguing, we've got the rest of the team to- SON OF A!” Bee doubled over as his dart ended up right above his codpiece. Sideswipe never prided himself on his aim.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> YOU FOOLS, IT WAS AN ANGST FIC THE WHOLE TIME


	5. Chapter 5

“Not gonna lie, I’m gonna miss ‘em. Been so long since I last had a femme I could almost fool myself-” Circuitsplitter’s somber musings about his lost chestplates earned him a smack across the helm from Strongarm. He let himself dramatically reel forwards while Strongarm sought more tactful company, settling optics on Drift who looked just as grumpy as before- but at least he didn't clamp his servos across his chest anymore.

“Feeling better, Drift?” she asked. The samurai inclined his helm towards her, not bothering to speak when he didn't need to. But the impact of his gesture was somewhat ruined by his students running up to his knees.

“Don't worry, Master, we’ll protect you!”

“I've got his back!” Jetstorm leapt up and tried to scramble onto his teacher’s back, hanging off his shoulders while his brother tried to jam himself back into Drift’s wrist.

“Slipstream, Jetstorm, that really is not necessary,” Drift deadpanned while gently dislodging the Minicons from his frame. “But your concern is appreciated.” 

Strongarm muffled a laugh, wondering just how quickly everything managed to slip back to normality. At least, as normal life on Earth could be. She caught a glimpse of yellow armour near the Alchemor’s wreckage; Bumblebee preparing a stasis pod for Escargon while the criminal lay cuffed and knocked out in the dirt. She was about to approach him with an offer of help, but another mech on the edge of her optics stole her attention. He had a habit of doing that.

Sideswipe hadn't said a word on the way back to the scrapyard. He'd just sat himself on the stack of tires, watching the trees or the stars or maybe nothing at all. Strongarm couldn't tell, not even when she sat beside him.

“Hey, Sides, you okay?” She nudged him so he couldn't pretend to not hear her. “Not missing being a femme, are you?”

Just as she’d hoped, he scoffed around a fresh smile. Even in the dark, the glint of his denta was unmistakable. “How about you? Disappointed that you couldn't get a beard going before you switched back?” He swiped a hand against her chin and pulled back before she could swat it away, leaving her rubbing it as her jaw creaked from a laugh.

“Please, my face was itching from the fibreglass all day.” She almost thought she could still feel the sharp stubble against her digits. “How do you guys put up with that?”

“Patience and very sharp razors,” Sideswipe answered, before he folded his hands together and took on a very poor Drift impression. “They say the sword was created not to cut, but to shave, my student. Now please help me hide my chestplates, a true samurai cannot be seen so indecent!” If he had anything else to add, Strongarm’s fists against his servo discouraged him while she doubled over with laughter. 

“Alright, alright…” She calmed herself down through stray giggles, leaning against him. “What's _really_ up with you?” 

Sideswipe blinked, no doubt with a quick excuse already on his glossa, but Strongarm squeezed it back down with a hard grip on his shoulder. 

“...Mollusa.” His optics edged to look elsewhere in a strange kind of guilt. “Escargon thought I was someone he knew. Who's Mollusa?”

As much as she wanted to answer him, Strongarm could only shrug. “From the sound of it, she must have been close to him. A family member, maybe.” Still holding his shoulder with one hand, she used the other to search her subspace for a datapad. ”I'll take a look at his profile, see if it mentions anythi-”

For the first time in her life, she regretted her fast reading skill. She'd barely opened the page before she found what she was looking for, before she could regret looking for it in the first place.

“What? What’d you find?” Sideswipe must have not picked up on her dismay; or, worse, he did and ended up sharing some of it on her behalf. Either way, Strongarm didn't let him see the datapad as she stood up and called out.

“Bumblebee, sir!” Though he was halfway across the scrapyard, he was by her side in less than five nanoklicks. “Have a look at this.” She handed him the datapad before Sideswipe could get a glance at it, and Bumblebee didn't need long to see what was wrong.

“Fixit! Get over here!” Wherever the Minicon was, Strongarm wasn’t surprised to see him taking his time as he trundled up to their scowling commander. Not even Sideswipe dared going near Bee with that look on his face.

“I-Is something wrong, sir?” Fixit’s innocent question was promptly answered by the datapad shoved into his fact, showing the same profile he must have read earlier that day.

“Did you know he had a family?” Bee asked, brimming with fury while Fixit held the datapad far from his face.

“Uh… I don't quite understand-”

“Escargon,” Bee elaborated, before firmly repeating himself. “Did you know he had a family?”

Fixit didn't need to read the profile to know, and he didn't try hiding behind the pad.  
“I… knew his sparkmate was deceased,” he confessed. “And that his daughter was placed under guardianship when he was arrested.”

“What was his sparkmate’s name?” Bee pressed, utterly unphased by the Minicon’s guilt. 

“...Mollusa,” Fixit said quietly, with barely a stutter. Strongarm already knew that, and she was sure even a mech with Sideswipe's processor must have suspected it. But she still couldn't bring herself to look at him and see that realisation on his face, even if it meant facing on Fixit’s remorse instead. 

“And you didn't think to tell us that before?” Bee asked coldly. 

“It… w-wasn't relevant to the fission-zzt  
-mission.” Fixit struggled not to cough around the lump in his vocaliser that was already breaking against his attempt at explaining.  
“And... I didn’t want to let any emotions get in the way of him being caught.” This time he managed to meet Bee’s optics, but not for long before they fell back to the ground.

“You still knowingly withheld information about a criminal, Fixit.” Bumblebee somehow managed to give off the authority of a Prime without the Matrix, though perhaps that was just from how he loomed over the Minicon. “If we'd known this beforehand, we could have used a more… delicate method of arresting him. We might have even managed to co-operate with him.”

Fixit’s regret dissolved as he looked up, about to defend himself further, but Sideswipe shoved himself between the two mechs before they could argue. “Look, all that matters is that we’ve got him,” he said, almost stumbling over the words as he rushed to get them out. “The real question is, knowing he has a kid, should we lock him up with the rest?”

Strongarm was still wrestling with her sympathy, but the question snapped her back to the mind of an officer. “Well, of course we should, he's dangerous! And that kid is under guardianship, chances are she's better off that way-”

“You don't know that, Strongarm!” Sideswipe turned on her like a turbopuppy snarling at its mother, so suddenly and with such force that even Bumblebee was jolted out of glaring at Fixit. Sideswipe himself looked shocked by his own anger, long nanoklicks left empty as he waited for it to pass. He gulped amid the wide optics staring at him. 

“All we know is that he doesn't mean to hurt bots,” he added, still straining from the aftermath of his outburst. “He isn't even in the same league as most of the Decepticons running around. He's… just sick. There's obviously something wrong with his processor, probably from when his sparkmate died. Whether he deserves to be with his kid or not, I just don't think locking him up will help him get any better.” 

If his rage shocked everyone into silence, then this rare show of empathy might have left them speechless for the rest of the evening. Strongarm was so used to refuting everything that came out of his mouth that, now met with something that made sense, she had no idea what to say. She couldn't help wondering if it was just a lingering side-effect of the sex change, or if that had just brought out something in his spark that was usually kept buried beneath crude humour and ways to break the law. 

When she eventually knew what to say, it was something she never before thought would ever come out her vocaliser. 

“I agree with Sideswipe.” And she knew she'd definitely said it out loud from the look of utter bewilderment that Sideswipe threw at her. ”Incarceration might just end up making him more violent down the line. If he's not a Decepticon now, he might be one day if we’re not careful.”

Bumblebee now had to deal with both impossibilities, Sideswipe saying something sensible and Strongarm agreeing with him, at the same time. Eventually he just shook his helm and dislodged a sigh. “Well, you’re both right. Under normal circumstances we’d send him off to a psychiatrist, or someone who could fix his processor. But we don't have access to anything like that right now. So our only option right now is to contain him. When we get back to Cybertron, then we can worry about getting him treatment.” He gave each bot a long stare, but neither had anything to argue against him with. “For now, Strongarm, go check up on him. Make sure he hasn't woken up. And Sideswipe, go get some rest. You've earned it.”

Just to prove how strange the day was, Sideswipe was actually faster to obey than Strongarm. He left with long sagging strides and a heavy helm, but though Strongarm felt a pull to follow him she held back not far from where Bee and Fixit still faced each other, just in earshot of them both.

“You won't set him free, Bumblebee,” she heard Fixit say. “Even _you_ know he's too dangerous.”

There was a pause, as if Bee was just as confused by the Minicon’s warning tone as Strongarm was. Or perhaps because they both knew something she didn't. 

“...Go update his profile with the relevant information, Fixit,” Bee ordered.

“Yes, sir.” 

Strongarm pushed herself away before either of them stumbled onto her eavesdropping.


	6. Chapter 6

Sideswipe knew he wouldn't sleep, so he didn't bother trying. The night had barely budged since he closed his optics in vain, though it seemed Strongarm was the only other one still up to watch it trundle on- and to watch over their captive. 

Strongarm turned to face him as soon as he approached her, though that hardly surprised him. Even if he tried to sneak up on her, she'd hear him anyway. 

“Shouldn't you be recharging?” she asked, still watching the empty stasis pod in front of her while its former resident still lay silent on the ground, optic stalks tucked beneath his helm.

“Shouldn't _you_ have him caged up by now?” Sides asked back, pointing to Escargon from a safe distance. He wasn't scared of the mech, not anymore. He just didn't want to draw his attention, if he was even awake.

“His pod was damaged,” Strongarm explained, following his cautious stare at their prisoner. “I'm still waiting for the maglock mechanism to fix itself. Shouldn't take much longer.” 

Other than a hum of understanding, Sideswipe kept quiet. That must have seemed unusual to Strongarm, or maybe it was the fact that he kept staring at the fallen Maximal. 

“Sideswipe?”

He heard her, knew what she was really asking, but he couldn't answer it immediately. The sight of Escargon, once a sire and sparkmate, curled in the dirt of an unfamiliar planet and his own oozing slime, made his vocaliser freeze. Even so he couldn't look away. The least that he owed Escargon was his attention.

“...He said he finally found a mother for Shelly,” Sides recalled through blurry optics. “He looked so relieved, so _happy_ … I can't get that out my head. He had no idea what was really happening.”

Strongarm brought herself to his side, squeezing his shoulder in that way that could have brought a full-size Wrecker to his knees. Sideswipe kept himself standing just by virtue of still being frozen. “Like you said, Sides, there's something wrong with his processor. It was for his own good that we caught him, before he got himself seriously hurt.”

“I know… I know, but…” Sideswipe put his hand on hers with the intent to pull it away, but he couldn’t find the strength to do it. Instead he found the spaces between her digits and held onto them tightly. “Imagine if that happened to you,” he asked.

Strongarm dropped her optics for a nanoklick, just long enough for her to realise what was going on in his head. “I don’t know if I _can_ imagine it.”

“Exactly.” Sideswipe released his grip on her hand, turning back to Escargon. The mech hadn't budged- or so he thought, before he noticed the segments of his shell twitching ever so slightly. It might have just been reflex against the cold evening, but it happened again with his eyestalks. 

“...Is he awake?”

Strongarm squinted at Escargon’s prone frame, picking out the irregular spasms in the gloom. “Should be by now,” she replied.

“Can I… talk to him, before he gets put away?” 

Strongarm gave him a rare look, eyeridges sagging over a soft blue glow, and rarer still was the trust that she was about to hand over to him. “Sure, Sides. I'll give you a few klicks.”

He had to let go of her hand, but he still felt it squeezing his shoulder after she left. Without that, he doubted he would have been able to approach Escargon. 

He faced away from the stasis pod, curled in his own silent shell with his cuffed servos forming the core of his prison. And as Strongarm said, he was wide awake. A limp optic shot up to track Sideswipe as soon as he came close enough, narrowing on its stalk.

"What do _you_ want?” Escargon spoke with enough venom to make Insecticons envious, an entirely different mech from the one Sideswipe stumbled over that very morning. Now he was left stumbling over his own processor, too wary to even sit down.

“I… just want to talk,” he said, spreading his digits in front of him to show they were empty.

Escargon scoffed, blowing dirt out of his vents as his optic fell flat against his helm. “Do you, now? Before, you seemed happy to let _me_ do the talking. Making a fragging fool of myself.”

“Well… you were the one who turned me into a femme,” Sideswipe pointed out, kneeling down to prop the Maximal up so at least he wasn't glaring in the dust. Though he was cautious to touch the Maximal’s suspiciously shiny armour, he found that it was completely dry, like the slime had hardened into an even thicker shell around him. Escargon’s scowl faltered as he let Sideswipe pull him upright, leaning against the stasis pod at his back with a heavy helm.

“...Yeah, okay, I… you looked like someone I knew.” He pulled his optics close to his head and turned his helm away. “I got confused. It happens a lot.”

“I looked like Mollusa to you?” Sideswipe asked, seating himself opposite the Maximal. Escargon blinked with enough force to make his stalks shoot upright, each one swinging towards Sideswipe in wide surprise. Then they narrowed again, in confusion rarher than suspicion. 

“I… think so. I don't know. It's been a while, I… can't quite remember what she looks like.” Escargon’s optics sank low again, cuffed servos rubbing against each other like he was trying to stay warm. “But I keep seeing her everywhere. I keep trying to follow her, but... she's gone before I reach her.” The way he wreathed his digits together, it was almost as if he was trying to reach out for her ghost, wherever it might be.

“Why do you keep following her?” Sides asked, silently wondering if he'd act any differently than this.

“Because I love her.” Escargon answered instantly, like a reflex kick from his vocaliser, and his optics flared with new light. “I always will. Nothing will change that, not even…” He trailed off, hiding his face in the shadow of his helm. 

“But... you know she's dead, right?” Sideswipe leaned closer, and got his answer from Escargon’s flinch. “You can't bring her back. Not with all the pink energon in the world.”

Escargon sat frozen, not with shock but with the long-drawn sorrow of a mourning widow. “Dead… I know. I can't ever replace her, but… I need to try, don't I?” He looked to Sideswipe, as if he could tell him what to do. “For Shelly, she… she needs a mother.”

“Why do you think she _needs_ one?”

Escargon blinked, eyestalks balking back and looking to either side. “Cause… cause she needs someone better than me. Someone she can look up to. Someone who deserves to have her.” He sounded less sure of himself now, hampered by what must have been years of regret. 

“Why not make yourself the kind of bot she can be proud of?” Sideswipe asked. 

Escargon gave a half-sparked scoff. “I'm already a criminal. It's too late for that.” His stalks hovered as his optics narrowed. “Why do you care, anyway? You're an Autobot. It's your job to lock up Cons and… anyone who acts like one.” He rose his cuffed servos and pulled his hands against the shackles, a slight buzz coming from the metal colliding with the static energy keeping him restrained.

“You're a Maximal, aren't you?” Sideswipe countered, eyeing the strange emblem on his chest. “You lock up Predacons just like we do Decepticons.”

Escargon’s stalks fell, then sank fully as he shook his helm. “Not anymore. Even if there was any Predacons left, I… I can't go back to it.” He looked away, but the light of his optics was bright enough to burn through the back of them. “I did what I was told...I did my duty like every other Maximal, and my sparkmate _died_ for it.” The venom had returned, practically soaking Escargon’s glossa as he choked it up past his vocaliser. But before Sideswipe could be shocked again, or even wonder what he'd said wrong and what really happened to Mollusa, it was gone with a simple helm shake. Escargon blinked once and the fire was gone, not even an ember of fury left in his optics as he turned them back to Sideswipe. “You still haven't answered my question.”

Sideswipe wasn’t sure if he wanted to, but he felt that he owed the Maximal that much at least. “You wanna know the truth, Escargon?” He took a deep breath, cold night air rushing into his vents. “I didn't see much of my sire, growing up. My carrier, she did her best with me and my brother, but… I always felt like there was something missing. Knowing my dad was alive, just not around a lot… it hurt a lot more than if he was just dead. Especially when my carrier died.” A stilted start quickly devolved into rushed rambling that left Sideswipe struggling around the lump in his throat. “The way you talked about Shelly, I… it made me wonder if my sire ever felt like that. If he ever even thought about his sons.” He paused and watched Escargon carefully. The Maximal looked away when he tried to meet his optics, but his face was written with a reluctant empathy. 

“I know my word isn't worth much,” Sides went on. “But… Shelly doesn't _need_ a new mother. Not when she has a sire to look after her. And if you’re off chasing ghosts or rotting in jail, you're not with her when she needs you the most.” 

Escargon took a while to understand that, or perhaps just to accept it. For whichever reason, he could only whisper now. “...I want to be with her. But I can't abandon Mollusa.”

“Only one of them is still alive, Escargon,” Sides reasoned. “The choice seems pretty obvious to me.” 

A silence elapsed, with nothing but the hum of stasis cuffs to disturb it, but when Escargon opened his mouth to speak he was interrupted before he could even start.

“Sideswipe.” 

The too-familiar voice came from behind, Sideswipe, causing him to jolt upright as he leapt to his peds. “B-Bumblebee! I… I was just-”

Rather than being faced with the stern disapproval he was expecting, Bee only waved a hand at him in dismissal. “Relax, Sides. Strongarm explained.” He turned to the Maximal and his lofty wide optics. “Escargon, we understand that there's... special circumstances surrounding your situation, but you've still broken the law and you need to serve your sentence.” The snail’s optics started going limp just before Bee raised a hand. “However… if you co-operate, we can have most of that sentence carried out while you're in stasis. And we can negotiate visitation for daughter when you get back to Cybertron.”

Escargon swivelled both optics on Bumblebee, somehow more shocked than he was to see Mollusa in Sideswipe. “...Really?”

“Yes. If you agree, I can guarantee that you’ll see Shelly again. You have my word.” Bee placed a hand over his spark. “What do you say?”

Again Escargon was left speechless, jaw flapping and antennae flicking wildly as he scrabbled for words. “I… I-I... yes. Please. I'd like that.” This time when he smiled, Sideswipe knew that it was genuine. The Autobot quietly took his leave, looking back at Escargon’s silent and cautious joy until he crashed into something- or someone, as he found out. Strongarm didn't seem disturbed by the collision, didn't even throw a jab about watching where he was going for once.

“Sounds like everything worked out in the end,” she said, looking behind him at Bee and Escargon. She smiled, but Sideswipe found himself hesitant to return it. 

“...How much of that did you hear?” he asked. 

Strongarm blinked in a brief blip of confusion. “How much of what?”

Sideswipe watched her for another few nanoklicks before shaking his helm and edging past her. “Nevermind.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Might be an epilogue featuring Shelly soon but for now I'm all done


	7. Epilogue

_...Three years later…_

“...How do I look?”

Sideswipe himself had seen Escargon meticulously scrub his armour for a full breem, yet he hardly recognised the meek mech standing before him. “You can barely tell you’ve been in a stasis pod the last three stellar cycles,” he answered, drawing a nervous smile out of the Maximal’s shell. 

Still brushing shaking digits down his chest, Escargon tilted his drawn-back stalks towards the door to his left. There was one fractured window set into the wall, showing a dull outline kneeling on the floor of the room beyond. She didn't play with any toys or make a sound behind the blurry glass. Escargon looked like he wondered if she was even really there.

“Does… she know?” he asked quietly, like he wasn't supposed to be standing where he was.

“She knows you're here to see her,” Sides said. “We could barely get her into the room, she was so excited.” He laughed as he rubbed at the paint scuffs on his servos thanks to the tiny kicks of a hyperactive sparkling. Bumblebee was still inside trying to calm her down, or just buying her sire more time to prepare.

Escargon blinked his low optics slowly, angling them down to watch his digits tremble. “I've been waiting so long for this day, but… I'm scared to go in. Scared of seeing my own daughter… how pathetic is that?”

He dropped his servos just as Sideswipe placed one on his shoulder, squeezing gently. “You have nothing to be scared of, Escargon. It's been a while, sure, but she still loves you. And she misses you just as much as you missed her.”

The Maximal swivelled his optics towards Sideswipe, studying his smile and trying to believe him, only looking away when Bumblebee appeared from that foreboding door.

“We're ready when you are,” he said, holding the door open but hiding its interior with his back. 

Looking from Bee to Sideswipe and back again, Escargon gulped, shrank his optics, and closed them with a sigh as he marched inside. Sideswipe didn't try to follow him, but he did stand by Bumblebee as he kept the door propped open.

Through the glass, the tiny blur looked up at the new silhouette across from her, periscope optics like her father’s hovering cautiously. “Daddy...?” 

“Shelly…” Without seeing his face it was hard to tell what Escargon was feeling, trapped halfway between laughter and tears as he knelt before her. The laughter eventually prevailed, pouring from his vocaliser with the force of a flood. “You’ve gotten so big!”

If the sparkling had any doubt that this mech was her sire, it was gone as she stumbled to embrace him. The two silhouettes merged into one, each tightly holding the other. 

“I missed you, Daddy! Where did you go?”

Escargon pulled away, servos on his daughter’s shoulders as he tried to answer her. “I… I did some bad things, sweetie. I got in trouble, and I had to go away for it.”

“Did you take someone’s energon without asking, Daddy?”

He laughed again, shaking his helm. “No, no, worse than that. But I've made up for it. As long as I behave myself, I won't have to leave you ever again.”

“Does that mean we can go home?”

“Not... today, sweetspark. See, because of the bad things I did, I'm not allowed to take you home just yet. You’ll have to stay with your foster parents a little longer, but I'll come visit whenever I can.” There was a pause that was surely caused by Shelly sulking. 

“Have your fosters been good to you?” Escargon pressed.

“Yeah, but… I want my _real_ parents.” A thud hit the floor as she stomped a ped in protest. “I want you and Mama!” 

Before a tantrum could break out, something worse replaced it. Her anger evaporated in place of curiosity as she asked the question everyone was dreading; 

“Where _is_ Mama, Daddy?”

Sideswipe thought it best that he and Bumblebee started leaving, but Bee wouldn't be budged. He threw a silent look at Sides, before returning his gaze to the room as he waited for Escargon’s reaction that could decide his fate once and for all. If he still thought she was alive, he could be stuck in a psych ward for the rest of his life.

The Maximal breathed in deep, almost matching the tension shared by the two Autobots.

“…Mama left as well, sweetie,” he said, so quietly that Sideswipe wasn’t sure he'd even spoken until he saw the relief on Bee’s face. “She got hurt very badly, and she had to go to the Allspark to get fixed up.”

Other than the waver in his voice, Escargon did well to keep up the act that everything was fine. Seemingly too well, from how Shelly responded. “But when’s she coming back?”

“She… she isn’t coming back.” Escargon separated from Shelly, starting to falter as if the realisation was as new to him as it was to her. “She can’t come back, she’s… hurt too badly. She has to stay with Primus. That way she’ll always be watching over you, even if you can’t see her.” He went on too fast to give Shelly a chance to interrupt, too fast for him to dwell on what he was finally admitting.

Shelly took a moment to consider her sire’s words, leaving Sideswipe to wonder if she even knew what death was. If she was old enough to even understand it.

“But… but I miss her,” she argued, as if that would convince the Allspark to bring her back.

“I miss her too, sweetie. So, so much. But she’s in a better place. And just before she had to go… she said she wished she could see you smile one last time. Can you do that for me, sweetspark? Just one little smile for her?”

Sideswipe didn't know if she managed one in the brief silence that followed. Regardless, she couldn't stop herself from the inevitable sobbing that had her collapsing into her father's shadow.

“I-I… I w-w-w-want Mama back…!” 

“So do I, Shelly. So do I.” Escargon managed to mask his grief despite how his vocaliser threatened to crack, as he suppressed her wailing against his chest. “But I'll be here for you. Whenever you need me… I'll be here.”

He let out a tear-wrought sigh over his daughter's shoulder, as Bee silently closed the door. All sound cut out as soon as it clicked shut, not even a whimper from beyond the glass disturbing the air.

Sideswipe watched the pair of shadows shudder in their embrace, still not sure what to feel. “Well?” he asked Bumblebee, who hadn't moved an inch. “Was that… good?”

Bumblebee took a moment to face Sideswipe, making him wait for the answer. “He's finally accepted Mollusa’s death,” he said. “Now he can help Shelly do the same. It's the best outcome we could have hoped for.”

Sideswipe blinked, then sighed in a rush of relief. “Do you think they’ll let her stay with him?”

“The foster agency will watch his behaviour for a while before making a decision,” Bumblebee replied. “But if he keeps on like this, I don't see why not.”

He offered Sideswipe a hopeful smile that the other mech happily copied. “Good… good.” He looked again at their shapes in the window, picking out Shelly curled into her father's servos. “Thanks for letting me in on this, Bee.”

Bumblebee squeezed his shoulder gently. “Well, you were the one who helped catch him in the first place,” he pointed out, steering him towards the exit after one last glance at the reunited family. 

“Who knows?” Bee went on as he pushed at the doors leading outside. “Maybe _you’ll_ be a good sire like him one day.”

“‘One day’?” Sideswipe scoffed. “I’m a good sire already!”

“Uh huh,” Bumblebee said in a sarcastic deadpan. “You sure Strongarm would agree?”

Sideswipe stopped in his tracks, about to protest, but the door shut on him before he could try, and just as he remembered who he forgot to pick up from the nursery that day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the delay; life got quite crazy for a while and I had pretty much zero time for writing. But I can finally say this story is finished- and I hope to be starting work on the next instalment of this series soon. Thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoyed it :)


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